The invention relates generally to electronic gaming equipment, and more particularly, to an electronic gaming table apparatus that can facilitate game play for one or more players and is customizable to provide various gaming layouts and images to facilitating game play thereon.
A significant amount of gaming occurs at live table games that use playing cards and a live dealer. Exemplary live table games include blackjack, poker, baccarat and poker variants. Each of these live table games are facilitated through the use of a specialized table including areas defined on the table felt or surface as player positions which are intended to accommodate the needs of multiple players during play of the underlying game. Each player position may include designated locations defined on the table for the placement of implements used in the underlying game, such as playing cards, and for wagers to be placed in the form of a tokens or chips, including ante wagers, game wagers, side wagers and the like. Gaming operators require that dealers and players maintain implements of the game and wagers placed in such designated locations defined on the table for security and regulatory reasons, among other things.
Generally speaking, the gaming floor or “pit” in any casino will have multiple gaming tables of a specific game installed for use by players. Multiple gaming tables of the same game installed in which different minimum and maximum wagers are allowable may also be available. The amount of gaming tables used for any one game may be selected by a combination of factors including the popularity of the underlying game, strategies applied by the gaming operator to appeal to certain types of players and limitations set forth in the license agreements of proprietary games that limit the amount of tables which may be provided.
It should be readily apparent that once a gaming table is installed with a specific game it is time-consuming, cumbersome and requires staff and some down-time to be removed and replaced with another game, even if only the felt layout is removed and replaced. Furthermore, the player positions are static and may not be changed, regardless of how many players are actually playing the underlying game at any one time.
A number of attempts have been made to design and provide partial or fully automated gaming machines that duplicate play of live table card games. For example, video poker slot games and slot-type blackjack games for single players. In those systems, the individual player sits at an individual machine, inserts credits/currency/coins, and plays a one-on-one game that is controlled by a processor in the machine or to which the machine is distally connected through a communication network. These machines are common provided in casinos but do not duplicate the ambience of the casino table game with multiple players present.
Another type of attempt for simulating live table card games is through the use of multiplayer gaming machines having a bank of individual player positions associated with a single dealer position in an attempt to simulate the physical ambiance of a live casino table card game. Some of these systems have a video display of a dealer, virtual cards or chips, and have individual monitors for display of the players' hands and the dealer hands. The architecture of such systems is generally been designed on a unique basis for each game, and there tends to be a main computer/processor that drives all elements of the game, or multiple computers/processors that distribute the video control of the dealer image and the remainder of the game elements between the two distinct computer/processors. This tends to maximize the cost of the system and tends to provide a slow system with high processing power demands to keep the operation working at speeds needed to maximize use and profit from the machines. Furthermore, once the machine is installed, it is even more cumbersome to remove and replace than a gaming table.